The third annual Tokatee Scramble, a golf tournament benefiting the McKenzie River Medical Clinic, has room for some more teams. This year, the popular tournament takes place on Sunday, August 31, during Labor Day weekend. Tokatee Golf Club, on the McKenzie Hwy.

BLUE RIVER: Events like the Chainsaw Art Festival involve competitions like the daily quick carves or main event sculptures. Yet behind the scenes the interactions between the people operating those snarling saws are pretty open hearted.

The fleet of buses glided through the ghost of a forest — a forest of silver snags, like millions of weatherbeaten masts of old sailing ships sticking up out of the earth. It was 1949, just ten years after the second Tillamook Burn had ravaged the land anew, and it was showing few signs of recovery on its own.

Wildish Construction will close the Leaburg Dam to all vehicle and pedestrian access starting on Monday, August 25th. The work is expected to take about three days, but could last until Thursday and Friday if unforeseen issues come up.

Yesterday, lightning sparked six fires on the McKenzie River Ranger District. Fortunately, firefighters were able to respond rapidly to these starts and kept them all under an acre. All the fires were located in the north end of the Three Sisters Wilderness and required the work of rappellers, smoke jumpers and district personnel to keep the fire sizes to a minimum.